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Putting my spin on the Spin Dress

If you’ve got your finger on the pulse, your ear to the ground, your eyes and ears and mouth and nose. Head shoulders knees and toes. Then you would know that Madeit Patterns have just brought out a new pattern. It’s the Spin Dress, an idea sparked by Darcy, because she knows what girls like (and not in a Tine Temapah way).

After making the dress for Darcy, Scout wanted one too (obvs). I didn’t have any more fancy Splash fabric, but Scout’s dress needed to be a bit special too for me to gain extra mummy points.

I looked through my fabric collection (putting it that way sounds much nicer than my fabric stuffed in a box under my bed). And I found 3 suitable jerseys for Scout to choose from. She picked an acid yellow interlock because… get this ‘it’s warmer’, thinking about texture and comfort ahead of aesthetics. I was impressed.

Inspired by the wonderfully quirky dresses at No Added Sugar, I wanted to add a little edge to Scout’s otherwise plain yellow dress against Darcy’s spectacular version. So I added a side bustle by first cutting 1 yellow and 1 navy size 2 circle skirts not on the fold. I then played around with positioning and size using the ‘squinty eye head tilt technique’ that usually works a treat.

Three layers of the tier are tucked neatly in between the bodice and skirt seam, the lower navy layer sits on top of the skirt and the seam is covered by the layer above. Both fabrics are pretty thick so I wanted to avoid too much bulk around the waist.

I left the edges raw on the skirt and bustle, I prefer it that way and it helps make the bustle lie flat. Unfortunately, the navy quilted knit (used before here) frays considerably, so I had to hem all the edges.

The decision for mismatched sleeves was a given in my eyes, 2 yellow sleeves wouldn’t have looked right. The navy balances it out nicely.

The one other thing I did that veered away from the pattern was to lower the neckline slightly. Interlock doesn’t have much stretch and I wanted to avoid this happening.

I can not tell you how much Scout loves her new Spin Dress. Indeed I scored one million ‘thumbs up’ mummy points.

The original skater dress I made for Darcy didn’t have a pocket. The pocket was a suggestion from Maria, thank you Maria, that was a splendid idea and guess who is now jealous because her Spin Dress doesn’t have a pocket.

No Frills

After my pimped up version, it may sound ironic to say that the Spin Dress is a ‘No Frills Pattern’, but in this case, NO FRILLS is the Madeit Patterns range of simple, affordable, quality sewing patterns for the experienced home sewer.

Our NO FRILLS patterns are the same great quality that you can expect from every Madeit pattern, but without detailed step-by-step, full colour, photographic tutorials. Instead you get basic sewing instructions and all the key information that you need.

Low price

And because of this the Spin Dress is being sold at a price you wouldn’t bat an eyelid at. £4.95, yeah, you better believe it. Now go get yours and put your own creative spin on it.

Oh my gosh, I LOVE how this came out! I have a thing for yellow and black already, but I love how you added the side bustle, with that bit of black popping out, and then recalling it with the one sleeve. The balance is perfect and you turned what would’ve been an unexciting dress into an incredibly cool one! Fantastic! 🙂 Lisa

Oh my gosh, I LOVE how this came out! I have a thing for yellow and black already, but I love how you added the side bustle, with that bit of black popping out, and then recalling it with the one sleeve. The balance is perfect and you turned what would’ve been an unexciting dress into an incredibly cool one! Fantastic! 🙂 Lisa

That yellow and navy dress with the side bustle is amazing! My daughter would love to wear either dress though. I’m interested in seeing what else MadeIT releases as a “No Frills” pattern, in the future. I usually don’t follow the tutorials anyways. 😉